What lurks beneath?

If your business regularly invites member of the public in to use any equipment or even just seating then you’ll need to have a thorough cleaning regime in place. Most people think that toilet seats are the grubbiest places and would take extra precautions when having to touch one. In fact, you might be surprised to learn that there are far more bacteria lurking on much more innocuous everyday items.

Toilet seats on average contain 1,600 germs per 100 cm2 but children’s play equipment? A whole lot more. Bikes and balls showed up levels of 14,000 per 100 cm2 and trampolines were the worst offender with a whopping 640,000 per 100 cm2.

Other items with a shocking level of bacteria included games console controllers, fridge handles, and toys. The games controller had almost five times the levels of a toilet seat! Seating also offered up a surprise in that sofa or chair arms had almost twelve times the bacteria of the average toilet seat! Keep your customers safe and think about Commercial cleaning Belfast. For more information, visit http://www.maccleanni.com/.

Regular and thorough handwashing remains the best advice to avoid contamination and illness but it’s still surprising to think that while we might scrub away at the toilet, we should perhaps be spending a little more time scrubbing other things! Taps can also be a breeding ground for germs as, after the flush, they are the first thing you touch before washing your hands. Disinfecting regularly will ensure that you’re not making your hands dirtier every time you try to wash them.

Offering public use of computers is another area that needs close supervision as keyboards can harbour some pretty unpleasant things. These need to be wiped down with antibacterial agents daily in order to prevent illnesses such as stomach flu spreading. Such illness can spread very rapidly through establishments where lots of people use the same equipment, such as libraries, schools, offices and colleges.

Share a kitchen at work? Make sure you are regularly throwing out sponges as these are breeding grounds for nasty things like salmonella. One that has been hanging around for a while could contain up to 134,630 bacteria per square inch, which is a staggering 456 times the levels of a toilet seat. Now you wouldn’t wash your plates in the toilet would you? So don’t use a dirty sponge to clean your cutlery either!

Carpets also contain some interesting bacteria who just love to munch on dead skin cells and anything else that gets dropped. Skin cells, food particles, pet hair, pollen and mud can all be found on carpets and rugs which could be home to salmonella, e coli and staphylococcus too. Vacuum cleaners can’t always reach to the bottom of carpets so it’s a good idea to organise a deep clean at least once a year and probably more in heavily used public areas.